Archive for the ‘land of Lincoln’ Category

The focus this January should be on Barack Obama, the first African American man ever to be elected President of the United States. There should be any number of articles about his childhood, his accomplishments and his many contributions and associations in Illinois, his home state.

Instead we are reminded daily, almost hourly, of the cesspool that is Illinois politics.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has some final words for the media after he announces his choice of former Ill. Attorney General Roland Burris to fill President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2008 in Chicago.(AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

Governor Rod Blagojevich stands accused of corruption but convicted of nothing except he is hogging the spotlight he doesn’t deserve. Blagojevich will be lucky someday to gain the kind regard other worthless politicians like Dan Quayle now enjoy. Except many of those cast aside by the media never really did any wrong. Blagojevich still awaits legal finality, even though his media star has set.

So Blagojevich is now tarnishing further the reputation of himself, his family and his state. And now, defiantly, he is pulling other good men into the quagmire with him.

Many of us, perhaps most of us, would never have heard of Roland Burris or Bobby Rush — and we would have been better off for that. But now we know them as participants, maybe unkowing or unwilling participants, in Rod Blagojevich’s comic, circus-like political press conference — and both men heave been saying some things that just don’t need to be said ever since.

All this has no real, meaningful impact on Barack Obama or anyone else, really. But when the media should be full of stories about the land of Lincoln and the wellspring of greatness and great men in Illinois, a pack of nutcase fools have stolen the show.

Roland Burris is battling for a U.S. Senate seat in court and through the media, briefly shifting the spotlight away from the man who picked him for the job, embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Burris filed a motion with the IllinoisSupreme Court seeking to force Secretary of State Jesse White to certify Blagojevich’s appointment of Burris to the seat. Getting White’s signature on the document would make it easier for Burris to argue that Senate leaders must accept him.

Burris also made his case in interview after interview Wednesday, arguing that his appointment shouldn’t be tainted by the corruption scandal that has engulfed Blagojevich.

The former Illinois attorney general said he will show up in Washington next week when new senators are sworn in, but he won’t create a scene if Senate leaders turn him away.

“That is not my style. I am not seeking to be confrontational,” the 71-year-old Burris told The Associated Press.